Norwegians lead South Pole ski race at midpoint

OSLO (Reuters Life!) - A two-man team from Norway has taken the lead from British rivals in a race to the South Pole nearly a century after Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen beat Britain's Robert Scott, organizers said on Tuesday.

The race that began on January 4 with six teams has become a dead heat between the front-running Norwegians and second-placed Brits by the halfway point, underscoring similarities of the dash for the Pole that Amundsen won in December 1911.

Scott arrived a month later only to find Amundsen's tent. He and his men perished of exhaustion, hunger and cold in March 1912 trying to return.

Norwegians Rune Malterud and Stian Aker reached the halfway point in the race across the Antarctic ice cap on January 12, eight days and 51 minutes after setting out and about five hours before the British runners-up, race officials said.

"It has turned into a race between the British team and the two Norwegians," organizer Tony Martin told Reuters from the checkpoint, 86 degrees, 38 minutes South. "For the past four to five days they have been racing within eyesight of each other."

The second-placed Brit team consists of television presenter Ben Fogle, Olympic rowing gold medalist James Cracknell and Ed Coats, a doctor who has swum the English Channel.

Three other teams had not yet reached the midpoint, where Martin said skies were blue and the temperature minus 32 degrees Celsius (minus 26 Fahrenheit) or around minus 48 C with the wind chill factor.

A sixth team, consisting of an English man and woman who did not keep up with the cutoff pace, was brought to the checkpoint by support crews and no longer qualify to compete, but will continue skiing, he said.
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